Counter-Strike 2 has largely been a continued triumph for Valve, sitting atop the Steam charts and consistently pulling daily player-count peaks that nearly double the second-placed Dota 2. Yet some of us crave the way things used to be. If that’s you, the good news is that predecessor Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, most affectionately known as CS:GO, is now back on Steam, boasting its own unique page, although you’ll need to look closely to find it.
You’ve techncially been able to access Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the past by accessing the game’s legacy branch through the properties menu for CS2 in your Steam library. Doing so would let you launch into either the modern FPS game or the CS:GO legacy build. However, Valve breaking it out into its own separate instance adds a few benefits, such as the ability to easily track how many people are returning to the old-school entry. At the time of writing, it’s already up to 26,000 and counting.
The new CS:GO page is unlisted on the Steam store, which means you won’t find it if you type it into the search bar, although I was able to get there with some carefully written Google queries. The easiest way is to simply visit the page directly. The other important caveats are that there are no official servers, matchmaking, or the community server browser. The achievements that vanished when the game evolved into CS2 haven’t reappeared either.
The hope (and, for now, it’s just that) is that this is the start of a greater initiative on Valve’s part to appease the CS:GO faithful. Returning the community server browser would be a welcome start, but it’s also possible that this standalone store page will enable actual mod support. Whether that ends up being the case will, naturally, fall into Valve’s lap. For the time being, you can already revisit classic modes like the battle royale-style Danger Zone.
Given that the ability to hook into classic CS:GO through the Counter-Strike 2 install already existed, it seems unlikely Valve would separate the two out unless it was intending to do the little bit of extra work required to offer basic functionality and support for those that want it. It would certainly be an easy win for them when it comes to player sentiment. Watch this space.
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